Bladder Cancer

A state health report on the incidence of cancer in nine census tracts located near Rockwell International's Santa Susana Field Laboratory will be released at the end of June, officials said Monday. The date of the report's release has not been determined, said Robert L. Holtzer, a public health officer with the state Department of Health Services. The census tracts covered in the report are within a five-mile radius to the north of the lab site.

Bacteria used to vaccinate people against tuberculosis are more effective than a standard chemotherapy drug for treating a common type of bladder cancer, doctors from 46 U.S. medical centers have concluded. The vaccine is made from the bacteria Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), which gives tuberculosis to cows and is used to prevent the disease in humans.

Federal officials said Tuesday that they will pay for a state health study of toxic releases from Rockwell's Santa Susana laboratory following disclosure Monday of preliminary data showing elevated rates of bladder cancer in nearby Canoga Park and Chatsworth neighborhoods. Approval of the study "is a done deal," Department of Energy official Roger Liddle said, although he added that he was not sure if state health authorities will get the entire $341,361 they have requested.

Dr. John P. Stein, a professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine and an internationally known specialist in urologic cancers and bladder reconstruction, died Friday at a hospital in Naples, Fla. He was 45. A research scientist and unusually skillful surgeon beloved for his compassionate bedside manner, Stein was a star in his field, who was, according to Keck Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, "what every dean of a medical school wants in a faculty member.

A drug activated in the body by light can destroy cancer without harming normal tissue, say U.S. doctors who experimented with the therapy in China. In a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital described their use of the treatment to help people with bladder cancer. Similar applications of this approach, called photodynamic therapy, have been used to treat tumors of the lungs and esophagus, as well as recurring breast cancer.

Veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, who has anchored "Face the Nation" since 1991, says he plans to step down from the Sunday morning political talk show with the inauguration of a new president. The start of a new administration next January provides a natural transition, he said. "That's when I'll stop doing what I'm doing now," Schieffer, who turns 71 next month, said in an interview this week. "But I'll still have some relationship with CBS, at least I hope so." Schieffer has talked retirement before.

The firm won on all but one count in a $28-million lawsuit brought by former workers who alleged that they were poisoned on the job by chemicals. The federal court jury in Charleston, W.Va., ruled that, although the seven former employees suffer from long-term health problems as a result of on-the-job contact with dioxin, the company did not knowingly poison them.

Cyclosporine, a drug given to transplant patients to prevent organ rejection, may turn pre-existing cancer more aggressive, according to researchers from Cornell University. Transplants have always carried the risk of cancer because doctors must suppress the immune system with powerful drugs such as cyclosporine to prevent the patient's body from attacking the new organ.